It is amazing when it comes to overhauling the nation's Byzantine health care system. Critics have painted the federal government's efforts as somehow evil. They want us to believe government health care reform is an insidious plot to create a Big Brother involvement in our personal health care decisions; certainly not an effort to create more competition, inject fairness or cut costs.

If health care reform fails, there will be many who will celebrate: the health insurers, the pharmaceutical industry and all of its investors. The fear-mongering of some politicians and pundits ignores the successful efforts of the government in regulating the drug industry, among others. (Pfizer was caught fraudulently marketing a drug and has agreed to a $2.3 billion penalty.) Tort reform, another mantra cited by health care reform critics, is responsible for just 1 percent to 2 percent of total health care costs, not the 10 percent the alarmists have estimated. There is also the fear that more government involvement in health care will cripple research and development efforts of the drug companies. Really? These companies already spend twice as much on advertising as they do on research.

Are critics of health care reform, so fearful of big government, truly oblivious that they are kowtowing to very powerful political forces controlled by the drug and health care insurance magnates? Are they distrustful of the government yet willing to cozy-up to the companies that have made billions in profits off of sick and injured Americans? These companies have been the most profitable enterprises in the country and they are fighting tooth and claw to stop the creation of a government health care option because it will mean the end of their gravy train. Health care costs continue to climb, the health care industry rakes in money, but the critics blithely go along thinking this is just fine. The critics are dead wrong.